Friday Fiver.

1. I'm on the laptop this morning because we are getting all our carpets cleaned. Luckily, our neighbor does this professionally and we get the culdesac discount. Yippee!

2. However, I'm tired because I spent most of last evening moving furniture from carpeted areas to hardwood areas. Our house is a mess, but it's always good to clean for fall. (I guess I'm not much of a spring cleaner then, hm.)

3. Novel Success Team Writing Challenge begins on Monday and goes until October 31. I plan to finish a draft, my friend Allison plans to finish, and I think other writers also have plans to give it a go. Plus, if we don't finish by then, we can use NanoWrimo to finish!

4. This has been a very exhausting week because of a multitude of things: work issues and stress, interviews galore for hubby (which is a great thing!), and lots of house cleaning chores completed (gutters, pressure washing of deck, driveway, sidewalks, and flagstone patios). We're having friends over for some fun tonight!

5. I will have to leave process behind in order to finish my draft in the Novel Success Team Writing Challenge. I may never learn process in this novel writing game, but the goal is to simply complete a draft right now, not become Janet Evanovich overnight.

Have a great weekend!

Thursday Resistance

And I'm back with another few good thoughts about Resistance (and we have lived it this week; one thing after another after another after another).

Resistance has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. We feed it with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.

Or this:

When a writer begins to overcome her Resistance--in other words, when she actually starts to write--she may find that those close to her begin acting strangely. They may become moody or sullen, they may get sick; they may accuse the writer of "changing," of "not being the person she was." The closer these people are to the awakening writer, the more bizarrely they will act and the more emotion they will put behind their actions.

They are trying to sabotage her.

The reason is that they are struggling, consciously or unconsciously, against their own Resistance. The awakening writer's success becomes a reproach to them. If she can beat these demons, why can't they?

Often close friends (or colleagues, families, couples) will enter into tacit compacts whereby each individual pledges (unconsciously) to remain mired in the same slough in which she and all her cronies have become so comfortable. The highest treason a crab can commit is to make a leap for the rim of the bucket.

The awakening artist must be ruthless, not only with herself, but with others. Once you make your break, you can't turn around for your buddy who catches his trouser leg on the barbed wire. The best thing you can do for that friend (and he'd tell you this himself, if he really is your friend) is to get over the wall and keep motating. The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.

Writing Inspiration Wednesday

My writing prompt for this morning is:

In Making Shapely Fiction, the witty and wonderful Jerome Stern cautions against writing the "bathtub story." A bathtub story opens with the protagonist taking a bath (or occupying a similar confined space). During this bath, the protagonist thinks of, ruminates upon, wonders about, and analyzes the past, present, and future, but he never gets out of the bathtub.

At some point, somebody in your story has to do something. How about now?

(from Monica Wood's The Pocket Muse: Ideas & Inspirations for Writing)

Now go write!

Nifty Firefox Widget

If you haven't heard of Stumble Upon, you're in for a surprise.

It's a whole 'nother world on the Internet.

Stumble Upon is a widget you plug into Firefox that asks you to check off your interests from a list of choices (writing, books, design, shopping, fashion; some of my picks) and it nests a Stumble! button into your Firefox browser header. Whenever you're bored online (LOL), just press the Stumble! button and it sends you to a web site that guaranteed to be interesting.

A few of my Stumbles from today:

Fashion/Craft

Journalism

Web 2.0

Religion

Free Books

Writing

Head here: Mozilla to download Firefox and the Stumble Upon add-on.

You'll be glad you did.

Book Rec Monday

So, whoever said learning something new was hard knew what they were talking about (What you talking about, Willis?)

They say it takes 10,000 hours of study and practice to become a master. And I believe it. I've now spent a week in my new "fiction craft" school and have learned so much, but know I have a ton more to learn. I realized I needed to read more widely in my chosen genre (YA) and so headed to B&N with my birthday gift card to do some damage. But the YA aisle bewildered me. What was good? I knew a lot of the names, but not enough.

That's where Nancy Pearl, former Seattle librarian, saved the day. Her books,

Book Lust



More Book Lust



and Book Crush



are the most inspiring, interesting, intriguing, and helpful books for die-hard book buyers and readers today. I didn't have my copy of Book Crush with me, but quickly found a copy at B&N and used it to traverse my way through the YA aisle. It worked! I came home with a bag full of the type of YA I'm writing (the best of the best) and a list of books to find online that my local brick and mortar B&N didn't carry.

It you're frustrated by trips to the bookstore and want some great recs to read, check out Pearl's recommendations.

So this week, I'm studying craft and studying my chosen genre. I am definitely on the right track!

Keep moving forward!